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It’s by Russell Moore and it’s about that moronic bumper sticker which claimed that if Jesus had a gun he’d still be alive. He’s 1000% right, writing in part

American evangelicalism is old and sick and weak, and doesn’t even know it. We are bored by what the Bible reveals as mysterious and glorious, and red-in-the-face about what hardly matters in the broad sweep of eternity. We clamor for the kind of power the world can recognize while ignoring the very power of God that comes through Christ and him crucified. We’ve traded in the Sermon on the Mount for slogans on our cars. We’ve exchanged Christ the King for Christ the meme. And through it all, we demonstrate what we care about—the same power and self-leverage this age already values.

Often our cultural and moral and political debates are important. Offering one’s opinion is fine and good, sometimes even necessary. But if our passions demonstrate that these things are most important to us, and to our identity, we have veered into a place we do not want to go. The most important word we have for the world around us, and for the soul within us, can indeed fit on a bumper sticker: “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”

And, I might add, he doesn’t need your gun.

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Too much “worship” in churches today is nothing more than the product of people’s imaginations designed to make them feel good. It should be the product of the study Scripture and designed to glorify God.

Having observed that the Word of God is the test which discriminates between his true worship and that which is false and vitiated, we thence readily infer that the whole form of divine worship in general use in the present day is nothing but mere corruption. For men pay no regard to what God has commanded, or to what he approves, in order that they may serve him in a becoming manner, but assume to themselves a license of devising modes of worship, and afterwards obtruding them upon him as a substitute for obedience. If in what I say I seem to exaggerate, let an examination be made of all the acts by which the…

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Just a reminder that I am accepting abstracts and offers of papers for our 2018 Hawarden Seminar until the end of this week (Friday 15th Dec), so please do get in touch if you would like to present. I hope to confirm acceptance and circulate the draft programme in mid-January. Thanks to all those of you who have already booked and have let me know – we still have a few spaces left if anyone else wants to come – please see the original email below for full details about booking procedures, costs etc.

Wishing you all the very best for the end of term and a happy Christmas,

Susan

Professor Susan Docherty Professor of New Testament and Early Judaism/Head of Theology Newman University Birmingham

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A Wisconsin couple intends to put the “fun” in “funeral” by legally serving alcohol inside a new Milwaukee area funeral home and event complex currently expected to open early next year.

The owners of Integrity Funeral Services in Rochester, Minn., recently received approval to sell alcohol at a nearly 6,000-square-foot facility slated for construction in Burlington, about 40 miles southwest of Milwaukee, the city’s local CBS affiliate reported Tuesday.

And when their new Integrity Celebrations facility opens in February, its proprietors expect mourners will wet their whistles while paying their last respects.

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Volume II/2 of this critical edition of all the documents of the Synod of Dordt (1618–1619) contains documents relating to the early sessions of the Synod of Dordt, until the expulsion of the Remonstrants. Many are published for the first time. Included are documents of the Pro-Acta sessions on several matters of Dutch church life—a new Dutch Bible translation, catechetical instruction, baptism of slave children, theological training and printing abuses—as well as documents concerning the contentious procedural debates with the Remonstrants on how to deal with the doctrinal issues in the controversy—their view of predestination and related points.